To deliver high bandwidth low cost communications solutions, many organizations and individuals use packet-based communications systems. These systems may support various types of communications, including the communication of streaming data such as data, voice or video. Audio and/or video streaming media sessions may occur over packet-based networks which utilize, e.g., Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”), various video streaming/conferencing protocols, etc., and may allow for the collaboration of video, audio and data on a network.
Conventional systems and methods frequently stream media which is transmitted using a Uniform Data Packet Internet Protocol (“UDP/IP”). While certain set-up messages may operate properly in such environment, one or more media streams may not reach the intended destination. This problematic scenario arises because, e.g., multiple Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses are assigned to a particular endpoint device receiving the media stream. In this situation, a control device managing the transmission and receipt of the media stream between given endpoint devices may often select the address information for the particular endpoint to which the media cannot be sent to, as opposed to the address to which the streaming media can be transmitted to.
The above-described inaccurate selection of the IP address destination for the particular endpoint device may occur because one or more of such endpoint devices may include two or more Network Interface Cards (“NICs”) assigned thereto. In addition, a particular endpoint device may reside on a Virtual Private Network (“VPN”) which assigns certain IP addresses to the devices connected thereto which are different from the originally-assigned IP addresses for these devices. If the VPN is not operating properly, the streaming media may not be able to reach the intended endpoint. Further, with the presence of a Network Address Translation (“NAT”) device, the device forwarding the streaming media to the intended endpoint device may be required to reach the NAT device first so that the NAT device would perform the address translation before the media stream reaches its destination.
The above described situation may contribute to unforeseen difficulties in selecting an accurate (i.e., actual) destination address for media streams. Thus, because the media streams are generally transmitted using datagrams, no “sessions” are established to assist the devices transmitting/receiving the media stream in properly routing the associated steaming media packets. Therefore, problems may occur when the media is streamed in these situations.